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Iconography of Sinwar
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A day after the confirmed death of Yahya Sinwar, I already saw countless reproductions of the scene of his last moments, the one where he was sitting on the chair, holding a stick. On my twitter I wrote, quoting an image of a young Palestinian recreating that image:
“It’s revolutionary that people are creating visual iconography around Yahya Sinwar. There’s revolutionary power in art, this is why people reproduce the portrait of Che Guevara or Karl Marx, and why we have symbols like the red triangle and watermelon. Israel messed up when they released their drone footage. We will forever remember Sinwar through the image of him looking back from his chair while holding a stick as the weapon. Just like how Palestinians recreate him sitting on an armchair with his legs crossed, this image will be reproduced time and time again. Killing the man was like fanning the flame that is the idea.”
When Israel released the drone footage of Sinwar’s last moments, everyone decided that it was a mistake. We saw the Palestinian resistance leader as he is: a fighter in the front lines, using whatever he had in store to resist the state that has been terrorising them for the past seventy-six years. In a much simpler sense, it has given us an image of Yahya Sinwar: he’s sitting on a chair within the rubbles, one arm bleeding, the other holding a stick as a weapon, his face covered with a keffiyeh, his eyes gazing towards the drone camera.
There have been various symbols that crawled up during the long fight for Palestinian liberation, such as the watermelon and the inverted red triangle. There are many reasons why symbols become popularised. The watermelon was born as a symbol from 1967 when Israel banned the use of the Palestinian flag, which then sparked the use of the watermelon fruit, since it shares the same colours as the flag. The inverted red triangle is a more recent phenomenon, being used by pro-Palestine activists online after seeing it in Hamas videos to indicate Israeli military targets. It also makes reference to the red triangle in the Palestinian flag itself.
So how does a person become a symbol? We’ve seen it many times before. It’s hard not to recognise the face of Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin, Che Guevara, etc. In an (arguably cynical) Smithsonian Magazine article, the author describes the origin of the iconic image of Che Guevara. It started off as a rejected photograph from the photographer Alberto Korda, who was fixated on capturing images of Che. Right before Che’s death, two copies of the photographs were bought by a businessman, and the image was distributed to the public through uncopyrighted reproduction. Many people have pointed out the irony of the popularity of Che Guevara’s symbol, how people are capitalising from Che Guevara merchandise or that Che wasn’t actually a perfect person. But the undeniable truth is this: that Korda took the picture because he believed in something, that the people buying the merchandise believes in something, that the thousands of artists recreating his portrait believe in something.
With the internet, this sort of uncopyrighted distribution has never been easier. Photos and videos are mass-distributed every second of the day, reaching almost every part of the world. This is why everyone said that it was a grave mistake that Israel decided to release the drone footage, and what a revolutionary mistake it is. Before Sinwar’s death, young Palestinians have already been recreating the “Sinwar Pose”, the one with him sitting cross-legged on an armchair in the middle of the rubble. It’s like destiny that the same man would be documented sitting on another chair in the middle of the rubbles once again, it’s like a poem writing itself. And though it’s hard for anything to become more iconic than the image of Che, I believe that these images of Sinwar will have a lasting impact on Palestinians, freedom fighters, and revolutionaries all over the world. Through the distribution and the reproduction of the image of Sinwar, we gain more and more reasons to believe in the resistance, the liberation of Palestine, and like Che Guevara said, “shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
References:
https://x.com/HumaZhr/status/1847695226380406969
https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1847281752785457468
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/20/palestine-symbols-keffiyeh-olive-branch-watermelon
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/11/13/whats-the-red-triangle-being-used-by-pro-palestinian-activists
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/iconic-photography-che-guevara-alberto-korda-cultural-travel-180960615/
https://www.stevemoretti.ca/post/che-guevara-the-man-vs-the-icon
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